AMD is launching two new mainstream APUs, the Ryzen 7 449 & the Ryzen 5 439, and both of these come with an NPU-less design.
AMD's Latest Gorgon APUs Don't Feature an NPU, Making Them Ideal For Mainstream Users
The debate of whether you need an NPU or not remains a hot topic. The addition of NPUs came at a time when everyone was diving into the "AI PC" space, with Microsoft's Copilot+ requiring at least 40 NPU TOPS for certification. Almost every vendor these days offers a dedicated AI silicon in the form of an NPU, but these chips carry a premium price tag. Furthermore, an NPU takes up die area, and while some may use it to offload basic AI tasks from cloud to local, most users are just fine without it.
Well, the NPU topic needs a wider discussion, but it looks like AMD is listening to its customers & partners. The company has released two brand new APUs under the Ryzen 400 "Gorgon" lineup , & both of these don't feature an NPU. Well, that is also why they don't have "Ryzen AI" branding attached to them.
The two chips are very similar to the "Ryzen AI" parts. Starting with the Ryzen 7 449 , this chip has 8 cores in a 4 x Zen 5 + 4 x Zen 5c configuration, 16 threads, 16 MB of L3 cache, and 8 MB of L2 cache.
The chip operates at a base clock of 2.0 GHz and a boost clock of 5.0 GHz, and features a Radeon 860M iGPU with 8 Compute Units and a 2800 MHz clock. The Ryzen AI 7 450 does offer higher clocks with a base frequency of 2.0 GHz, a boost of 5.1 GHz, & up to 3100 MHz iGPU clock speeds.
The second chip, the Ryzen 5 439 , is even more interesting. While it features the same core config as the Ryzen AI 5 440 with 6 cores in a 3 x Zen 5 + 3 x Zen 5c configuration, along with 12 threads, it carries just 8 MB of L3 cache as opposed to 16 MB on the 440.
The L2 cache remains at 6 MB. It features a Radeon 840M iGPU with 4 Compute Units and a clock speed of 2800 MHz, which is 100 MHz slower than the Ryzen AI 5 440. The core clocks are also slightly lower, with a base frequency of 2.0 GHz (vs 2.0 GHz) and a boost frequency of 4.6 GHz (vs 4.8 GHz).
Now, since neither of these chips packs any onboard NPU, the overall TOPs should be around 8-9 for the Ryzen 5 439 and around 15-16 for the Ryzen 7 449.
We expect to see these chips in a range of mainstream laptops that should be priced more competitively than the Ryzen AI 400 stack. However, the overall prices for these laptops may still be higher due to ongoing component shortages, which have devastated the consumer segment.
AMD Ryzen AI 400 "Gorgon Point" Mobile Lineup (Official):
| SKU | Cores / Threads | Boost Clock | Cache | NPU | GPU | Memory | TDP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryzen AI 9 HX 475 | 12/24 | 5.2 GHz | 36 MB | 60 TOPS | 16CU 890M @ 3.1GHz | 8533 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 | 12/24 | 5.2 GHz | 36 MB | 55 TOPS | 16CU 890M @ 3.1GHz | 8533 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen AI 9 465 | 10/20 | 5.0 GHz | 34 MB | 50 TOPS | 12CU 880M @ 2.9GHz | 8533 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen AI 7 450 | 8/16 | 5.1 GHz | 24 MB | 50 TOPS | 8CU 860M @ 3.1GHz | 8533 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen 7 449 | 8/16 | 5.0 GHz | 24 MB | 15 TOPS | 8CU 860M @ 2.8GHz | 8000 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen AI 7 445 | 6/12 | 4.6 GHz | 14 MB | 50 TOPS | 4CU 840M @ 2.9GHz | 8000 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen 5 439 | 6/12 | 4.6 GHz | 14 MB | 8 TOPS | 4CU 840M @ 2.8GHz | 7500 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen AI 5 435 | 6/12 | 4.5 GHz | 14 MB | 50 TOPS | 4CU 840M @ 2.8GHz | 8000 MT/s | 15-54W |
| Ryzen AI 5 430 | 4/8 | 4.5 GHz | 12 MB | 50 TOPS | 4CU 840M @ 2.8GHz | 8000 MT/s | 15-54W |
News Source: @Olrak29_
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